The Cost of Love
by Evanlyn Winter
Summary: L.I. is a robot who never expected to become so human. When everything is thrown upside down, there is one constant in his life: a green eyed boy named Eren. Neither of them were ready for what would happen, though. Summary will prob. change.


**_Warning: Character death_**

All (L.I.) saw was black. He felt like he was floating in nothing. Then text flashed across his vision, or his lack thereof, anyway.

 **Systems booting up. Sensory input: functional. Vision: functional.**

The text continued scrolling through different settings and output. He watched it, not knowing what it meant.

As he watched what seemed the last of the text scroll across the black, he felt it. The feeling of floating was gone and he felt heavier. He felt something hard beneath him, and something seemed to be gently poking his cheek. A man's voice filtered into his artificial ears.

"L.I., can you hear me?"

Upon hearing his name, more writing scrolled across his vision.

 **L.I. is an acronym Learning Intelligence. L.I. was built by Grisha Jaeger, the lead scientist in the Adapting Evolution project. He has a teenage son, Eren Jaeger, who is 15 years old. Grisha is married to Carla Jaeger.**

More info went past, stating their birthday, profession, personality, and more than L.I. could ever need, or want, to know. Really, who wanted to know how many *cough* *cough* 'partners' the person had had?

L.I. willed it to stop, and to his surprise, it stopped. He focused on only one question, and the text scrolled across, answering the question and nothing more. He willed it to stop and it did, to his relief.

The doctor seems to be getting anxious, L.I. noticed as he was brought out of his train of thought by the scientist.

"L.I., can you hear me?" Grisha said before turning to the scientist next to him. "I don't think it works" he said with a sigh, looking at the 'boy' on the table to his side. The female scientist seemed to be looking at something behind him, before saying

"Um, Grisha, you might want to check again."

The scientist quickly turned to look at the robot lying on the table. It seemed to be moving its eyes beneath it's eyelids. L.I. quickly opened his, or it's, as Grisha referred to him right now, eyes.

L.I. blinked as his eyes were flooded with light. The man, who he identified as Grisha Jaeger, was talking with another scientist excitedly. The man turned to him and asked him something quickly.

L.I.'s brow furrowed and he frowned.

 _Tch._ He thought _he was talking too fast._

The scientist called Grisha was quick to turn to his colleague.

"We did program him to comprehend and speak English, right?"

At L.I.'s confused and irritated expression, and Grisha's innocent, but oblivious, question she laughed.

"Grisha, he can understand us just fine, you were just talking too fast."

Grisha repeated his question. "Can you stand up for me?"

L.I. stood up with no issues. After a series of questions, Grisha deemed everything to be functional. L.I. could do what most people could do, since he built to be able to blend into human society. He could cry, blush, and even bleed. One of the few exceptions was eating and drinking, he could store it in his throat if absolutely necessary, but he had no stomach to digest or even store the food. L.I. could bleed artificial blood, but he couldn't die from losing too much of it. L.I. would shut down and go into a coma like state, but couldn't die from blood loss. Bones, however, could not be replicated, so if someone cut off a limb, they would only find metal.

Finding everything in working order, he ordered a nearby engineer to take apart L.I. so they could replicate him. A scientist came up to turn L.I. off and help carry him off. As the engineer held L.I. in place while the scientist was reaching for the panel in L.I.;s head, he started struggling.

The engineer had to tighten his grip on L.I. to keep him in place as he struggled. L.I. cried out in pain as the engineer gripped his arms tightly.

 _That's not right_ , Grisha thought, _We made Levi be able to feel touch, but nobody programmed him to feel pain._ Grisha's eyes widened at the realization.

"Turn off L.I.! Quickly!" the scientist yelled. The robot could be a safety hazard. L.I. was called Learning Intelligence for a reason, but he wasn't supposed to be this human, or this unpredictable. He was meant to simply be a programmed robot.

"NO" L.I. yelled "I don't want to die!"

Making a quick decision, Grisha sighed.

"Release him"

The workers stared at him, surprised by the sudden decision change, but slowly released L.I.

The boy now sat shaking on the ground, from anger or fear, nobody could tell. He looked up at Grisha with a deliberately blank look.

Grisha felt horrible. He had almost ordered something essentially human to be murdered. Yes, the engineers could rebuild him, but what if a piece was lost or broken? None of this mattered to L.I., being disassembled was essentially death to him.

Grisha knelt next to the boy and apologized softly. L.I.'s gaze softened slightly.

"L.I. will be staying with me" Grisha announced as he stood.

"Grisha, that's not what was planned" the female scientist from earlier objected. "I's not even sure that's allowed."

"He was going to stay with somebody for a while for real world experience eventually, anyway. Do you really want to be the one to tell him that he's not allowed out of the lab? From what I can tell, he already seems to have a distinct personality and it's definitely a very independent one.

The female sighed but agreed to explain the situation to the higher ups and cover for him.

Grisha knelt and held a hand out to the boy on the floor. L.I. accepted it and stood.

"So, I have to fill out all the special paperwork for you. I have to put your name on it, and im assuming you don't want L.I. on it. What do you want your name to be?" the scientist asked him. L.I. thought for a moment before deciding on-

"Levi. I want to be called Levi" he told the man.

After sorting out the paperwork he could, Grisha headed home with Levi. As they walked into the living room, Eren and Carla looked up in curiosity at the boy standing in the room.

"This is Levi. His family was in an accident and I promised to take care of him if they couldn't, so he will be staying with us for a while as long as that's ok with everyone" Grisha said.

Carla smiled at Levi and Eren stared. Levi raised an eyebrow at the boy's obvious staring. Eren looked away.

After a while Levi got used to the Jaeger lifestyle. Since they thought he was a 16 year old boy, he had to go to school. He lived the average life of a 16 year old, well except the partying and socializing. Grisha quickly found out that Levi was antisocial and generally disliked people. This baffled him as one of the boy's friends was too hyper for even Eren.

Grisha noticed that Levi now had a set personality. Levi had always had a personality, but now it seemed more set. Levi and Eren also had become close in the amount of time that Levi was here. Eren was energetic.

Levi would often hear the brown-haired boy before seeing him. Whether it was because he was fighting with jean or just simply talking too loudly, Eren wasn't hard to pick out in a crowd. When Levi made a comment about this, Eren said that Levi was even easier to spot in a crowd. His fair skin and black skin made him stand out.

While Levi looked like he could barely stand Eren at first glance, it was quite obvious that they were close if you looked closer. Levi didn't show affection openly most of the time. He had a generally neutral or annoyed expression on his face. Hanji, Levi's crazy and overly energetic friend, always compared Levi to a cat. She/he/it had said Levi was always looked mildly annoyed, aloof, and was sassy and sarcastic.

When Levi had first met Hanji, he had been confused on their gender. When he had asked Erwin, another of his friends, he had simply said their gender was Zoe. When he had asked what pronoun to use, he was told 'they' would work.

It was several months after Levi had been living with Eren and his family, no _their_ family, that it had happened. Eren and Levi were told to come to the office during school. Mr. and Mrs. Jaeger had been hit by a drunk driver while driving home after going to the grocery store.

Levi sat, with a hard to read expression on his face, the most visible emotion, though, was sorrow. Tears started falling down Eren's cheeks. The principle tried to comfort Eren to no success. Levi hugged Eren to his chest. The principle let them leave school early to figure everything out and to sort any financial and personal matters out.

Levi drove Eren home, where they put on Netflix while Levi held Eren close to him, wondering what would happen to them. A few hours later their question was answered when a man called them to inform them of the situation. He gave his condolences and said that they had a choice.

Because of their 'special situation' they could either be given to foster care, as they had no living relatives, and would be given access to the Jaeger's back account if they wished.

Eren was confused by what the man meant by 'special situation' and Levi told him he would explain it later. Even though Levi was 16 on official records, some people had been told that he was a robot and that he would get custody of Eren just in case of this very situation.

Levi and Eren said they would live on their own. Eren questioned Levi about what situation the man had been talking about soon after the phone call. Levi debated lying, but decided that Eren needed to know the truth, even he hated Levi afterwards.

Levi told Eren everything from the beginning, not daring to look Eren in the eye. When he was done, he looked up to see Eren's reaction. To his surprise, Eren wasn't mad, surprised and slightly ticked, yes, but mad? No.

Eren simply walked up and hugged Levi.

"You aren't mad? This changes everything doesn't it?" Levi asked, worry showing on his face. Levi rarely showed much outward emotion, so anytime Levi showed this much emotion it meant a lot.

Eren smiled at him, knowing that blaming Levi wouldn't do anything. Levi had explained why he hadn't told him, and it made sense. "No, im not mad, and this doesn't change anything. You're still Levi, you just are built differently from how I thought you were."

Eren saw something for the first time. Levi's eyes were slightly wet, and he was smiling.

"You're crying!" Eren exclaimed happily. "No im not, brat. You're imagining things." Levi said. Eren let it go but made sure to store this moment in his memory.

Eren was a mess for the first month after his parent's death, but with his friend's and Levi's help he was back to his old self. He still missed his parents, and he still would want to cry when thinking of them, but he had accepted it.

Levi wasn't in the best state after the accident either, but he handled sorrow more by himself. He had accepted it faster than Eren, as he had known the Jaegers for less time. He still regretted that they were dead. Many people had accused him of not caring, because he never looked like it affected him. It always hurt when someone yelled at him for his lack of visible emotions. He felt it, he just didn't outwardly show it. It was no use moping about something that you couldn't change.

Things looked up, in the next few months Eren and Levi seemed to get even closer. About a half year after Levi had been created, Eren asked Levi out. Levi said yes. Their friends at their lunch table cheered. Hanji's reaction was especially memorable, as they screamed happily, pulled a camera out of nowhere and began taking pictures, much to Levi's annoyance. She then threw glitter over the new couple, screaming something about a 'baptism of gayness.' Hanji snapped one last picture. It showed Levi, looking annoyed covered in glitter, reaching for the camera, with Eren laughing behind him.

Levi and Eren were driving to their date when they heard it. There was the screech and then headlight shining through the window. Levi reached out, trying to hold Eren in place, to protect him, as he felt the truck hit them. He felt the car cave in on his side. Then the pain hit. He felt his artificial blood running down his side and face. The last thing he saw was Eren's scared face, before everything went to black.

When he came to, all he heard was Eren's anguished screaming. It stopped and Levi felt himself being dragged, before being picked up bridal style. He felt himself being set on the ground, and hands on him. He could feel his mind and body shutting down, dying. The crash had destroyed much of the machinery inside his head and torso.

Levi opened his eyes to see a bloodied Eren kneeling above him. Eren grasped Levi's broken body to his chest, cradling the smaller male. Levi looked up and gave a sad smile, before his vision shut down, his body and mind shutting down seconds later.

Eren cried as he held the broken body of the man he loved. Levi was dead and there was nothing he could do about it. Eren's grip tightened as he thought of what everyone was told at one point or another. It was false, something told to make them feel better.

 _Love doesn't overcome everything and not everything ends with a perfect, happy ending._

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A/N: So i actually had to write a narrative for english, so i just wrote fanfiction and changed the names. So thats how this fanfic happened. Make sure to leave a review and tell me if u liked the fanfic and if the ending killed you or not.


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